


Time and again

by Tripawed



Series: Time series [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angels, Betrayal, Break Up, Coming Out, Crying, F/M, Fallen Angels, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, Heartbreak, Identity Issues, M/M, Marriage, Post-Break Up, Prison, wing fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 16:34:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16559279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tripawed/pseuds/Tripawed





	Time and again

_ When the doorbell rings he's not quite dressed, still barefoot, he answers. It's Will and like that all is good and right in the world. Hannibal wants to stand on his doorstep and drink in the sight of Will, whole and blessedly alive, forever. Will’s eyes slide left and right in his anxiety, his hands wring together, he bites his lower lip into his mouth before blurting. “I kissed Alana.” _

 

Briefly Hannibal considers just leaving and murdering Alana, he'd liked her before she started to tamper with things that did not belong to her. Now he considers just how gristly he should make her death to account for her betrayal. “Well, come in.” He chokes out between his teeth.

He leads Will through to the kitchen, the dishes from the previous night are still stacked everywhere and Hannibal genuinely considers burning the house down, he's supposed to be wooing Will not acting like a slovenly frat boy. “My apologies, it was a late night last night.” At his words Will looks contrite and begins to stammer excuses and makes to leave. It takes every ounce of strength he posses not to dive onto Will to make him stay. “Stay, I'll make breakfast.” He says and when Will still angles himself towards the door blurts desperately, “I have a theory about the trombonists killer and you could do with discussing what happened with Alana, you are clearly upset.” 

Will nods, “yes, ok, right, that's- yeah, that's a good idea. I can help you?” His voice wavers as he asks, “I could help tidy up?”

Hannibal has noticed Will is more likely to open up if his hands are busy, he can escape the need for eye contact and concentrate on what he wants to say. “Please,” he says, “ why don't you stack the dishwasher?” He waits, let's Will settle into the mundane tasks, while he makes coffee; allows the scent of it to add normality to the situation before he broaches the subject. “Tell me,” he tries very hard not to demand, “what was Alana's reaction?”   
“She said she wouldn't be good for me, and I wouldn't be good for her.” Hannibal feels a wave of relief, he hadn't really wanted  to have to murder Alana, in his own way he's fond of her, she not bad for a mortal.   
“I don't disagree.She would feel an obligation to her field of study to observe you, and you would resent her for it.” Like you resented me that first day he wants to snap, even knowing he's being unfair, he'd deliberately riyled  Will that day, dug in to get a reaction.   
“I know.”   
“Wondering then why you kissed her, and felt compelled to drive an hour in the snow to tell me about it.” He struggles to not sound as desolate as he feels.   
“Well, I wanted to kiss her since I met her. She's very kissable.” Hannibal shifts, rethinking his decision to  not murder Alana, and struggling not to pout or say something that will scare Will off.   
“You waited a long time, which suggests you were kissing her for a reason, in addition to wanting to.” At his words he feels Will go still and sneaks a glance at him from the corner of his eye, Will is red in the face and clutching at the plate he's  holding like it's a shield and he's at war.  _ Interesting. _

He waits let's the uncomfortable silence draw Wills words out into the air like poison from a wound.

“You ever,- uhh,” Will rubs at his face with his hands after dropping in the plate, a little too hard into the dishwasher, “notice someone, I mean really sort of notice them.”

“Part of my job and yours is to be aware of others.”

“Yeah.” Will wavers, “but I noticed, I mean like a teenager, sort seen someone and felt, I felt unstable.” He blunders. 

“That's why you kissed her,” Hannibal realises, hope blooming hot and heady in his veins, “a clutch for balance. Because you doubt yourself? You  _ noticed _ someone, someone you feel you shouldn't?”

Will blanches and begins almost throwing cutlery into the dishwasher to hide his agitation. It's pointless Hannibal can smell his upset.

Testing the waters Hannibal moves in to help, leans in so that his chest is pressed to Wills shoulder and makes a show of helping put the cutlery into the holder, at his presence he can hear Will's heart rate pick up. Smell the arousal that simmers in Wills veins. But he can also smell Will's discomfort and it jibes at him, chafes as though one of his feathers has become twisted the wrong way. He backs off.

“I'll make another protein scramble,” he offers to cover himself, “and we can discuss the trombonist murder, if you'd rather leave this for now.”

Will nods like a man on death row who's been give a last reprieve. “Thank you.”

Hannibal backs off back to the counter and cooks breakfast, eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes, he leaves the human meat in the fridge. He wants to feed it to Will to slake Will's hunger on the flesh of the unworthy but he finds now that he is worried prion disease can ravage a human and how will Will react when he discovers the truth. 

He sits down at the table and slides a plate of eggs and vegetables across to Will before picking up a fork. Will has poured them both coffee and he takes a sip to gather his thoughts.

“I hesitate telling you this as it    
borders on a violation of doctor-   
patient confidentiality. I’ve    
never been in this position before.” Hannibal admits, it's painful to admit even to Will to being out of  his depth. “A patient told me today he suspects    
a friend of his may be involved    
with the murder at the symphony.”  Now he understands Will he seeks only to protect him as he should have been for year, so many lost years. Glumly he pokes at his breakfast, “my patient believes that his friend, who owns a music store in Baltimore,    
specializing in string instruments, is a psychopath. Ordinarily I wouldn't pay much  attention to the diagnosis of an armchair psychiatrist but he says his friend has been quoting strange thing, there is some overlap apparently he mentioned playing a man like a fiddle. A figure of speech, yes, but in light of this I wonder if there may be more?      
Perhaps we should interview him.” He tries to emphasise the ‘we’ he doesn't want Will in any danger, he's already shifting his manipulations from murder and mayhem into how to keep Will safe and secure.

“I'll talk to Jack,” Will says, “thanks for the tip, I'll be sure to pass this on.” Will takes another bite of breakfast and hums appreciatively. “This is good.”

Hannibal smiles but inside he's fretting. Perhaps he should go and find out about Tobias himself?

When Will leaves to report to Jack, Hannibal helps him into his coat and smoothes the lines of it down over Will's shoulders. He breathes deeply at the scent of arousal that burns off Will.

“Did you just sniff me?”

“You need to change your aftershave.” Hannibal blurts quickly, before wishing he hadn't, when did he become so socially inept. “Something that doesn't smell like it has a ship on the bottle.” He tries to joke.

Will looks a little hurt but he still smiles. “Thanks for everything.”

“It's always a pleasure to see you Will.”

Will smiles more genuinely and Hannibal wants to capture the essence of it and cradle it to his chest during the times when Will leaves him.

“Please, will you update me as much as you can? I understand, cases and legal issues but I will worry about my patient.” He passes then puts himself out there a little, “and you.”

“Nine times. I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve been    
dumped by a psychiatrist.”   
“I’m sorry, Franklyn, I think it’s best if you see another doctor.” Hannibal says, exasperated and anxious. His phone vibrates and he checks  it while Franklyn talks. He sees Wills name and opens it ‘going to interview a few guys who run music shops’ Hannibal notices it was sent nearly three hours ago and clutches the phone even tighter.   
“You’re giving me a referral.” Franklyn bleats on in the background.

Hannibal grits his teeth, feels his phone vibrates  again and sneaks a peak. Just a breaking news bulletin from an app. He turns the screen off and shoves the phone under his leg. “Yes.” It's blunt but it gets his point across.   
“You were a referral.” Franklyn bleats again his face crumpling.   
“I’m also part of the problem. You focus too much on your therapist and not enough on your therapy.”   
“You lost respect for me because I wouldn’t report Tobias, didn’t you?” 

Hannibal sighs deeply, the petty troubles of mortals.   
“Report Tobias for what?” A voice asks from the doorway.   
Franklyn is recolis in surprise to see a dark skinned young man standing in the doorway and Hannibal catches the scent of blood. There is definitely Will's blood in the mix.   
“Tobias...?”   
Hannibal stands as Tobias moves into the room, he knocks his phone to the floor  and swears to himself if the screen is broken he's going to skin Tobias alive.   
“I came to say goodbye, Franklyn.”   
“What do you mean goodbye? Ohmygod. Is that your blood?”   
“I just killed two men. The FBI came    
to question me about the murder.”   
Hannibal feels the bottom drop out of his world, not again, dear god in heaven, not again.

“You have to turn yourself in. This plane is going down. Let it be a controlled descent. You can get back up in the air again. There is rehabilitation for everyone.” Franklyn says reaching out towards his friend. Hannibal rolls his eyes.   
“Franklyn, I want you to leave now.” Hannibal snarls goaded beyond endurance, he's going to have to wait another hundred years, this isn't right, this wasn't how it was  supposed to be.   
“Stay right where you are, Franklyn.” Tobias growls, Hannibal almost laughs this ignorant mass  of flesh and nerves thinks he's the top predator here.   
Franklyn takes another step forward, both his hands raised, palms up,trying to calm Tobias “You’ve done something horrible and I know you wish to god you didn’t, but you did and there’s nothing you can do to change that. Only thing you can change is your future. You’re probably scared. Probably feel like you’re all alone.” Frankly says and Hannibal rolls his eyes so hard he can almost feel the ligaments keeping them in his head snapping.   
“I’m not alone.” Tobias says, he's staring and Hannibal has the awful though that perhaps he thinks they can be  friends. “I'm not your friend.”   
“That’s right.” Franklyn soothes giving Hannibal the evil eye, he could almost applaud him for finally growing a pair. “You’re not alone. Nothing has happened in our friendship that you and I can’t recover from.”   
Losing his patience Hannibal steps forward places a hand on either side of Franklyn’s head and twists. The sound of neck bones breaking is music to his ears, he let's go dropping him to the ground like yesterday’s trash.

“I was looking forward to that.” Tobias says, his white teeth bright against his dark skin, skin that Hannibal intends to peel off him in strips like an apple.

“I know,” he says, the phone rings cutting through the silence of the room and in a fit of rage he picks it up and slams it into Tobias’s head, the other man staggers back a few paces before recovering and coming back at Hannibal with a strip of piano wire. He almost laughs, he fought demon hordes and actual vikings back in the day, besieged castles that were equipped with boiling oil and this mortal wants to hurt him with wire, it's almost cute. Or it would be if Will were still here to see it. Tobias hefts the wire as a weapon and he blocks it feeling his anger burn hotter when it wrecks the sleeve of his jacket, he had liked that jacket. He ducks low and comes in at Tobias delivering a quick volley of blows intending to skip nimbly out of range again but the mortal grabs his arm and tries to block him across the chest. He flicks Tobias over the desk, superior strength and musculature coming into play without even having to bother loosening his wings and going after the mortal that way.   
He dives over the desk after his prey and wraps an arm around the others throat, Tobias struggles and he squeezes harder exulting at the feel of the mortal weakening. He rears back in fury when he feels metal in his thigh, he bears his teeth and considers making this one disappear, he could have so much fun with this one, it's no more than he deserves. Tobias follows him and they grapple at each other punching and kicking at whatever bits of each other they can. He pulls a pen from his pocket and stabs hard at Tobias’s arm dragging it down to create a long wound and revels in the scream that his action provokes. He goes to stab Tobias somewhere vital when he gets hit in the throat himself and staggers back trying to clear his head. Tobias hits him in the head and follows up with blow after blow, furious and his ego smarting at talking this long to dispatch a single human, Hannibal grabs his arm and snaps it neatly, smirking at the smell of fear and pain that suddenly perfumes the air. He considers loosening his wings and beating Tobias to death with them like an angry swan, it often gives a mortal that extra jolt of terror to be faced with total proof of an almighty just as they go to meet him. But the inevitable police investigation makes him stay his hand, it'll be hard enough to get through this without making thing worse.  _ Never make and accident look like murder _ he thinks, unexplained or unusual things will be difficult, and for once he's nearly not the guilty party. Instead he picks up a statue and brings it down on Tobias head, there is a satisfying crack and the mortals breathing turns agonal and then begins to fade.

He turns the table over and lowers himself down onto the floor to consider his next moves, should he put the statue back and claim that Tobias got the injury during the fight? He has enough faith in his acting skills to pull of frightened traumatised man until he can disappear and await Will all over again. The aching loneliness has him weeping as he sits next to the cooling corpse of his foe.

The sounds of sirens make his decision for him, being caught tampering with a crime scene is a crime so he sits not bothering to attempt to stop his tears. Police officers come racing in, sadly none he know and start barking out orders, he follows them obediently, lies down and put his hands on his head and let's the tears drip down his face unhindered. 

“Sir?” one of the officers asks, while training a gun on him, “what happened?”

“I don't know, but he stabbed me.”

“Are you hurt, sir?”

He starts giggling which he didn't mean to but seems to have the paradoxical effect of getting the police officers to believe that he’s innocent.

“Stay there and a paramedic will be with you shortly.”

“Can I get up?”

“Yes.” 

He struggles up to sit on the floor where he was lying, the officer keeps the gun on him, he's got good instincts, but no one seems terribly concerned about what he might do.

A paramedic comes and ushers him to sit in his desk chair, and to pull his sleeve up so they can see the bloody wound on his forearm, it's not deep but it is bleeding. He's given a pad and encouraged to place pressure on the wound on his thing. “I'm a doctor,” he tells the young woman who’s tending to him gently, she is being incredibly gentle, the tears on his face are making her act maternal towards him for all that he appears about fifteen years her senior.

Heavy footsteps sound in the corridor outside and he turns to see Jack Crawford in the doorway. He half nods, then freezes as from behind him shuffles Will. Alive.

He has to force the sob that wants to erupt back down. “I was worried,” he has to pauses to get the next words to emerge, “ that you were dead.”

Will proffers his own wounded arm for inspection and the years roll back and it could be any of the lifetimes they have shared Will young, blue eyed and dangerous, showing off his wounds and wanting to inspect Hannibal’s own.  Seeking reassurance, his body reacting to muscle memory his mind does not recall.

Hannibal tries to find a convincing smile.

Jack Crawford clears his throat and Hannibal imagines pulling it out with his teeth and eating it raw in front on Jack’s face as he dies. Instead he turns and looks up at the officer.

“Tobias Budge kills two Baltimore Police Officers, nearly kills an FBI Special Agent, and after all that his first stop is your office.” he says accusatory.

“He came to kill my patient,” he replies, with the added benefit that it's all true.

“Hannibal’s patient told him he suspected a friend was involved with the murder at the symphony. Hannibal told me and I investigated. I got him involved.” Will jumps in to defend his honour as he had in so many other lives and Hannibal smiles up at him, convinced he could be recalled to heaven to fight and still be happy now that he's seen Will Graham, alive before him. He can carry this image, this moment with him like a talisman. He has a strong desire to buy Will the shiniest thing he can find and present it to him, but represses his urges as best he can. He'll steal an item of Will’s clothes and hide it under the mattress at home if he gets a chance. He's musing on what a shame it is that Will only has a small wardrobe otherwise he could steal enough stuff to line his whole bed, stuff into his pillow cases, sleep cocooned in Will’s scent.

Will interrupts his happy thoughts, “ Your patient. Is that who Tobias Budge was serenading?”   
“I don’t know. Franklyn knew more than he was telling me. He told Mr. Budge he didn’t have to kill anymore. Then he broke Franklyn’s neck. Then he attacked me.”   
“And then you killed him.” Jack states, no room for maneuver.   
“Yes.” He says infusing his voice and face with sadness, it's not too hard, he is still so full of adrenaline and fury that it's easy to provoke emotions in himself, he suspects that the tear tracks on his face add to the kicked puppy look.   
“Could your patient’ve been involved with any of what Budge was doing?”

Hannibal shakes his head, “I thought this was a simple matter of poor choice in friends.”   
Jack glares at him Hannibal a brief moment, then turns back to the crime scene, “This doesn’t feel simple.” he sighs and Hannibal almost feels sorry for him, he's going his whole life trying to put puzzles together without all the pieces, it's not his fault the supernatural has been considered as nonsense for the better part of fifty years now, maybe more. But he's noticed a shift in the last fifty away from God away from ghosts and creatures, from angels and demons towards science and what maths can explain.   
Jack moves off to study the crime scene grumbling as he goes, he's a good man and he's right to be suspicious. As soon as he goes Will sits on the edge of the table, “I feel like I’ve dragged you into my world.”   
“I got here on my own.” He smiles, poor sweet Will, “ But I appreciate the company.” Will smiles down at him, and Hannibal can read relief in his gaze.

“Come to my house,” he says, “I'll make you dinner.” For a moment he thinks Will is going to refuse, and braces himself, in all his forms Will has often had a need to seclude himself to gather his thoughts and this Will is clearly wrestling with his demons. 

“Let me call my neighbour to see to my dogs, or Al- or someone,” he clears his throat and rubs at an eyebrow, “if I can get them fed and let out into the garden so they don't ruin my house then I'm going to gratefully accept. Or are you going to be taken to the hospital, how badly are you hurt?”

“It's a minor stab wound,” he says and Wills eyes go huge. 

“Why are you still here?” he demands, “Jack,” he hisses over his shoulder, “Jack, he's got a stab wound!”

“A minor one,” he corrects, but Will ignores him.

He ends up travelling to the hospital, Will gets into the back of the ambulance with him, jaw set like he's expecting a fight but the motherly paramedic simply eyes them both with a soft expression and pats Will on the shoulder. “He's going to be just fine.” she tells him.


End file.
